Thursday, September 13, 2012

Reading Caravan Sept. 13, 2012















Badoc, Ilocos Norte  - (First Leg of the National Tour from North to South) Badoc South Central School is the most populated school of the town with about 740 enrollees. Many come from marginalized families. During the reading session, some Grade 1 and 2 pupils, all from marginalized families, intuitively point on the letters and count with their other set of fingers to recall what the letters are in front of them.
Some of them cannot read. In the case of this writer, out of 41 pupils, 6 pretended to be able to read, murmuring non-syllables. Incidentally, only 2 Grade 1 pupils out of 20 were noted to have difficulty reading. They already use books in vernacular and this could have helped because among the Grade 2 pupils, 4 cannot (out of 21 pupils). When asked why he cannot read, one pupil answered he have no books to read. Probably, he meant no interesting books to read. Public school pupils are provided with black-ink, dog-eared, disintegrating books below (actual photos). Others are photocopied and bound with 2-hole fasteners.

In this session, we were able to give books to 130 pupils and 11 teachers. For each level, 3 pupils were chosen as more interested pupils and were given 4 books. The books are courtesy of Read Philippines, Darien Books, and Bituen.